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Real Conservative Senators Should Vote For Senator Rand Paul's Budget

The Senate is expected to vote on four competing budget plans introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) today. Passing an annual budget for the federal government is a fundamental responsibility of Congress. Yet under Harry Reid’s leadership, the Senate has not passed a budget in over three years and no Democrats in the Senate have even offered a budget proposal this year.

All of these proposed budgets would be an improvement from the status quo but Rand Paul’s Platform to Revitalize America shines above the rest. It would repeal ObamaCare, reform the tax code, block grant Medicaid to the states, reform Social Security, and balance the federal budget in just five years without raising taxes.

Most Republicans pay a lot of lip service to cutting spending but their actions rarely live up to their limited government rhetoric. But true fiscal conservatives like Rand Paul actually walk their talk. His budget plan is the only one that will abolish entire departments. The Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, and Housing and Urban Development would be axed under his plan. Poof! These needless bureaucracies would be gone. That’s what I call a real budget plan. This is the strongest budget plan in a generation and all senators serious about reducing the size and scope of government should stand behind Rand Paul’s budget.

The Rand Paul budget would slow up the regulatory state. The American people are forced to comply with thousands and thousands of outrageous new rules and regulations issued by the executive branch annually. The term “major rule” refers to any rule or regulation that has an annual economic impact of $100 million or more. Regulatory agencies issued 100 major rules in 2010 without any input from our elected representatives in Congress. Anyone who remembers the classic School House Rock! video that shows how a bill becomes a law can testify that unelected bureaucrats in the executive branch aren’t supposed to make the laws.

The executive branch has completely disregarded article 1, section 7 of the Constitution, which outlines the process of creating a new law and clearly gives that power to the legislative branch. Rand Paul’s budget would implement the REINS Act which requires congressional approval for all “major rules” proposed by the executive branch. The REINS Act wouldn’t be necessary if the Constitution was strictly followed in Washington, DC. Congressional representatives are the most accountable to the people and must be allowed to stop harmful regulations that will erode individual liberty and crush job growth.

Under the Paul plan, Americans would no longer fear sexual harassment at the airport since the plan would privatize the TSA. Rand Paul knows a little something about how incompetent and abusive the TSA can be. He was detained at the Nashville airport for hours and ended up missing his speech at the March for Life back in January. The TSA picked the wrong guy to mess with. Now the senator is pursuing his mission to abolish the TSA with a vengeance.

As the budget report card complied by Dean Clancy and Daniel Anderson shows, Rand Paul’s plan earns an A+. The plans introduced by Sens. Mike Lee and Toomey earn an A- and B+, respectively. All three plans would balance the federal budget and save trillions of dollars within the next decade. But as FreedomWorks noted in our key vote notice, we do have serious concerns about the health care reform proposal in the Lee Budget and the Medicare provisions in the Toomey and Lee budgets—proposals that trace their roots to the Heritage Foundation plan that provided the template for RomneyCare and ObamaCare.

Why haven’t more Republicans rallied behind Rand Paul’s plan? Only seven senators had the courage to vote for Rand Paul’s almost identical budget plan last year. Do most Republicans senators want to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic? Simply nibbling around the edges of the budget won’t cut it.

Will the real conservative senators please stand up? The time has come to make your actions match your rhetoric.

when i saw senator rand paul do his budgest on the senate floor. I was very happy. He spoke the truth. When i saw the vote on the senate floor.I was crying and hurt. Harry reid are you happy now? yes you are. you and everyone else who did not like hearing the truth should be fired. paul ryan gets a f from me. mike lee gets a b pat t gets a b also. Senator rand paul budgest is the only one that makes any sense.

On behalf of our activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to vote NO on the Defense, Labor, and Health and Human Services (HHS) minibus, H.R. 6157. In addition to spending profligately on programs included in the minibus, it also includes a short-term continuing resolution (CR) for remaining appropriations bills into fiscal year 2019.

On behalf of our activist community, I urge you to contact your senators and ask them to vote NO on the Defense, Labor, and Health and Human Services (HHS) minibus, H.R. 6157. The bill includes a short-term continuing resolution (CR) for remaining appropriations bills, continuing the excessive spending under the Bipartisan Budget Act, which was passed by Congress in February and spent nearly $300 billion more than the previously established spending caps.

College basketball star Len Bias died of a powder cocaine overdose while celebrating his number one draft pick in the 1986 NBA Draft. Because his death was widely, although mistakenly, thought to be due to a crack cocaine overdose, the public and the federal government responded alike -- with panic about the perceived heightened dangers of crack cocaine. This panic served to advance the national war on drugs that was already well underway.

On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your senators and ask them to vote NO on the House Amendment to the National Flood Insurance Program Extension Act, S. 1182. This amendment would reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which currently expires July 31, until November 30, without any reforms to the program.

It is no secret that Social Security and Medicare will soon be insolvent. The updated Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report released earlier this month has confirmed that insolvency is still imminent, and will come even sooner than anticipated.

There’s almost always a Republican who gets in the way of a positive legislative victory. On health insurance reform, there were a few, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who blocked the “skinny repeal” of ObamaCare from moving forward. It almost happened on tax reform because of Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). On nearly every issue, Sen. Susan Collins (?-Maine) plays a key part in it. Yesterday, joining Sen. Collins, was Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who played the part of Judas.

On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your Senators and urge them to vote YES on limited government amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), H.R. 5515. These two amendments would restore much needed congressional oversight on investment policymaking and guarantee due process of law for American citizens in accordance with the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

On behalf of FreedomWorks’ activist community, I urge you to contact your representative and ask him or her to vote YES on limited government amendments to the Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, H.R. 5895. These five amendments would eliminate some wasteful spending across the bill.

On behalf of FreedomWorks activists nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and senators and ask them to support the Spending Cuts to Expired and Unnecessary Programs Act, H.R. 3 and S. 2979, introduced by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). This bill would rescind the $15 billion in unobligated budget authorities from previous years that President Trump requested to Congress earlier this week in his proposal to rescind funds as provided for under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

FreedomWorks is proud to announce that our bill of the month for May 2018 is the Welfare Reform and Upward Mobility Act, H.R. 2832 and S. 1290, introduced by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in the House and by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) in the Senate.